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Title: The role of lexical and grammatical means of modality in realising intentionality of media discourse

 

Vol. 14(2), 2026, pp. 52-70

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46687/IPMX1299     

 

Author: S. Rajeswari

About the author: Dr. S. Rajeswari is working as Associate Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Sciences, Gokaraju Rangaraju Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. She obtained an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur. She has 25 years of academic experience. She prepared English study material for an engineering course. She was the course writer for OU CDE and prepared video lessons for EMMREC and EFLU. She has published 21 research papers in various national and international journals and presented papers at several national and international seminars and Conferences.  She has attended workshops, symposia, FDPs, and online certification courses in related areas. She teaches English, English for Technical Communication, English Language Communication Skills, and Advanced English Language Communication Skills Lab to enhance employability skills among the students.

E-mail: rajishankar96@gmail.com       

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2952-800X         

 

Link: http://silc.fhn-shu.com/issues/2026-2/SILC_2026_Vol_14_Issue_2_052-070_19.pdf

 

Citation (APA): Rajeswari, S. (2026). The role of lexical and grammatical means of modality in realising intentionality of media discourse. Studies in Linguistics, Culture, and FLT, 14(2), 52-70. https://doi.org/10.46687/IPMX1299  

 

Abstract: This study investigates the contribution of lexical and grammatical modality devices towards conveying intentionality in media discourse through a comparative analysis of feature journalism articles from The Times of India (TOI) and The Los Angeles Times (The LA Times). Mixed-methods corpus-assisted discourse analysis was employed on 20 climate feature articles. There were 85 lexical modal markers and 81 grammatical markers identified in the dataset. Findings show that TOI employs more epistemic modals such as “may” and “could” (over 50% of its modal verbs) and passive voice (15 times), indicative of a conservative, fact-reporting tone. The LA Times, on the other hand, uses more deontic modals (must, should) and evaluative adverbs (nine compared to three for TOI), and recurring conditional clauses (14 times), connoting urgency and commanding force. These patterns demonstrate how modality is not only a semantic category but also a rhetorical tool that resonates with journalistic intentionality, building persuasion, hedging, and depersonalization.

Keywords: modality, intentionality, media discourse, climate change journalism, corpus-assisted discourse analysis

 

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